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Friday, December 27, 2013

Takenoko, By Antoine Bauza

Takenoko is a game of expanding, cultivating, and eating for
2-4 players. Before I dive into the game, I’m going to save you some time; if
you think this is cute, you’re going to enjoy this game:

Pictured here is the star of the show, the Panda, whose
life’s ambition is to nibble bamboo stalks and lounge around the Emperor’s gardens.
The Emperor wants a magnificent Zen garden, and has tasked the Gardener with
maintaining it – something not easy to do with the Panda munching on the
Emperor’s precious bamboo. The game is won by completing objectives aligned with
these desires and, in doing so, by scoring more points than your opponents.

Points are
scored as players meet the conditions on their objective cards, of which there
are three types:

Emperor: Objective is to expand the
garden to include specific arrangements of colored tiles

Panda: Objective is to eat bamboo of various
colors

These
objectives come in three separate decks, and players can gain them as the game
progresses. The first player to finish 7, 8, ir 9 objectives (or 4, 3, or 2 players) takes a bonus, and triggers the last round of the game.

Each turn players are allowed to take 2 of 5 available
actions, which allow for the manipulation of the garden to meet the different
objectives. In general, the actions correspond to the desires of the game’s
characters, as players seek to expand the garden, cultivate bamboo, eat bamboo
(you will struggle not to say “nom nom nom” aloud each time you have the Panda
dine on freshly-grown bamboo stalks), irrigate the garden, and draw additional
objective cards.

The game begins with an empty garden, no bamboo stalks, and
the Panda and Gardener innocently occupying the middle hex, which serves as a
launching pad for expansion and the central source of irrigation in the game.
Regardless of the number of players, the garden tends to grow quickly as
players look to score their various objectives, and the beautiful imagery and
mix of colors in the game makes this expansion as pleasing visually as it is in
game-play. Players tend to be able to quickly finish objectives as the garden
expands and is filled with bamboo shoots, and because objectives are hidden, there
is very little room to impede opponent’s progress. This makes for a quick move
from beginning to middle to end, and keeps the pressure on players to use their
turns wisely, lest they fall behind, but without the sense of pressure that
comes in other games.

In my experience, there’s never a point where it feels like
you’re out of the game, as Takenoko borrows the Eurogame standard of victory
points in lieu of elimination as a win condition, and most objectives are able
to be completed in a turn or two. The winning margin is usually a few points,
and tends to come because the winner had a good mix of attainable objective
cards and got a little lucky.

The game feels like an exercise in mutual construction, as
it’s not possible to move tiles or otherwise destroy the work of other players,
with the exception of the Panda’s consumption of bamboo. The combination of
beautiful art - including the instruction manual, which is incredible – and
simple, quick game play makes for an enjoyable hour of gaming with players of
any age, especially because reading is not required (for those of you with
young kids).